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How a Dead Woman’s Belongings Made Me Think About My Life and Mortality

Have you ever moved into a house to find the previous owner left everything they didn’t want?

Krista Bennett
8 min readApr 9, 2022
Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash

In 2005, my husband and I bought a house in Upstate, New York from a guy named Dan. Dan was a widower who lost his wife Shirley to breast cancer.

Rumor has it, Shirley was granted the house in a nasty divorce from her first husband.

Newly divorced, she met Dan at a local bar. Dan mentioned once that he and Shirley had only gone out a couple of times when she received a terminal diagnosis.

Despite only knowing each other for a short time, Dan proposed to Shirley and they were married. Although she was told she had at least a year to live, Shirley died 42 days after marrying Dan.

According to Shirley’s Will, the house was left to Dan. This caused Shirley’s only daughter to file a legal suit against him, claiming he had altered her mother’s Will.

Shirley’s daughter believed that the house was supposed to be left to her and her children. It was the house she grew up in. Understandably, she must have been hurt and angry.

Dan ultimately won the long-drawn-out court battle. During which, he was permitted to remain in the…

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